Endings
by Luciferine
Summary: When Jackson loses two of its most well-known residents within days of each other, Tommy is left to pick up the pieces as best as he can. (The obligatory 'darkest timeline, everybody dies AU'). Cross-posted from Tumblr.


**AN: OKAY FIRST OF ALL THIS IS DEFINITELY AU AND DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAPPEN IN SOTM (or if anything similar happens, it won't go down like this... maybe...) JUST GOT THIS DRABBLE IN MY HEAD LAST NIGHT AND HAD TO WRITE IT OH GOD I'M SORRY! Warnings for major character death. And sadness. Don't say I didn't warn you. **

The woods are uncharacteristically quiet. The only sound is the harsh scrape of a shovel into frost-covered soil. Tommy exhales heavily, breath clouding in the evening air. His bones ache. He's been digging for what feels like hours and he thinks to himself that this is what old age must feel like. _You got fucking old, Joel... It'll happen to you, too..._ He tosses the shovel to the ground with a bit more force than is totally necessary, replacing it with the bottle of whiskey that's been following him around lately. He takes a long pull, and tells himself it's just to ward off the cold. He takes another to kill old voices in his head. And another, when the first one doesn't do the trick.

The whiskey kicks up one hell of a burn going down, and he coughs, eyes watering.

He knows he should go home. Maria's been taking on his responsibilities as well as hers this past week, and it's not fair to her.

He's still here, dammit, he's still kicking, he's not...

(Gone).

He should go home, he thinks, and tell his wife he loves her. Instead, he takes another pull from the bottle and wishes it would work faster.

He trades the booze for the shovel and keeps digging. He tries to focus on the rhythm, on the ache in his shoulders, anything to distract him. He doesn't want to remember.

Then again, he should know more than anyone that no one gets what they want nowadays.

* * *

He's in the mess hall when it happens. Later, he'll remember stupid little details about those moments. A tear in his jeans. A crack in the table he's leaning sounds his shoes made on the floor. For the life of him, though, he can't remember who came to break the news.

A few hours before, a small group of bandits managed to break through the east fence. Nothing they haven't handled before. He wasn't overly worried. Joel had been with him when the fighting broke out. Ellie too. He remembers the girl cussing a blue streak, remembers Joel checking his guns to make sure they were loaded. Remembers them both in the doorway when he told them to be careful.

"Aren't we always?" Ellie chuckled at him. He remembers rolling his eyes almost in unison with Joel, remembers his older brother repeating his own warning back at him.

Tommy caught Ellie's arm at the last second. "Watch his back," he remembers asking of her. Later he'll kick himself over and over again for it. Her eyes flashed, then, turning hard and serious.

"Always," she'd promised, and he remembers believing her completely. He watched them go, barely an inch of space between them, and pitied the poor bastards who dared to get in their way.

He's in the mess hall, the last of the bandits who'd broken in dead by Tommy's own hand, when someone he can't remember walks up to him. He remembers a sense of dread creeping up through his gut.

"Maria?" The sense of relief that comes with a simple shake of their head makes him double over in relief.

"Your brother," they say, and everything suddenly becomes very still.

(Later, when he's splitting his knuckles against a wall and screaming obscenities, he'll remember the eerie sense of calm that washes over him).

He'll remember clearing his throat and asking, "Ellie?"

"Alive," they tell him. "But... Tommy, she's in real bad shape." He nods and straightens up.

They lead him to the clinic.

He can hear her screaming before they even open the doors.

* * *

(Later, the townsfolk will talk about it. How she just kept screaming Joel's name over and over, even after they pried her away from the body. They'll wonder just what exactly those two were to each other, to provoke such a response. They never wonder around Tommy, though.

Not after the first few broken noses).

Tommy remembers it like this. A few of the guards from the gate were trying to wrestle a hysterical Ellie onto one of the clinic cots. She was putting up one hell of a fight, and if it was anyone else beating grown men like that, Tommy would be worried for the town's security.

When she saw him, though, she stopped. He flinched at the hope in her eyes. She didn't say a word, but he knew what she was thinking. She wanted him to say it was all a mistake; it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked, and Joel was alive. Joel was alive, and her world wasn't shattered into a thousand pieces after all. Instead, all he can say is, "I'm so sorry, Ellie." It's strange, how he feels this girl has more of a right to mourn Joel than he does. He watches the fight fly right out of her, and feels as if he's trespassing on something deeply personal.

He dismisses the guards, despite their wary stares. Ellie collapses onto the nearest cot.

Tommy takes a seat just as the screaming starts again.

(It isn't until years later that he realizes she never said Joel's name again after she stopped screaming.

He wonders if it was a coincidence, or if she thought she'd lose her mind again if she said his name out loud. Most often, he tends to find truth in the latter).

* * *

Ellie doesn't speak much after that. Tommy's not sure whether that's because she's screamed herself hoarse or if words just won't come. Probably both.

He sits with her. Doesn't leave her side, even when Maria tries to relieve him.

"Joel would understand," she whispers to him as Ellie sleeps under the influence of the strongest sedative they could find. "He wouldn't begrudge you a few moments of peace. Just sleep for a bit, Tommy. I'll stay with her. She won't be alone. She'll be with family."

But that's just it. Ellie _is_ family. She was Joel's world. She's Tommy's last connection to the last bit of blood he had left in this world. He can't leave her.

"It won't be for much longer," he says, and when Maria asks him what he means, he doesn't have an answer to give her. She leaves at his request. He pretends not to notice the worried look she gives him on her way out.

He doesn't know how long he sits there. Hours. Days, maybe.

He nearly jumps out of him skin when Ellie speaks. "I was right beside him," she confesses. Her voice is barely there, rough with use and tears and grief.

He blinks at her stupidly, more than half-asleep and terribly confused.

"We had our backs together. Everything was _fine_, I swear. We'd gotten most of them. I just crouched down for a second, just a second... I don't even remember why..." She trails off, eyes distant. It takes her a while to come back around. He doesn't say anything. Hell, he's not even sure she's talking to him. "I heard the shot go off," she whispers. "And I _felt_ it. I wasn't hit but I felt it. And I knew, I just knew... I turned around and he was on the ground." She starts to shake violently.

Tommy doesn't know what to do, and not for the first time, he curses his brother for leaving.

"It was instant. Straight through his head from the back. It should make me feel better, that he didn't suffer. I mean, it's more than most people get, right? A quick death. But I don't. Feel better, I mean. I don't feel _anything_." He wants to tell her that the numbness is normal, that she's in shock, but he thinks it's more than that. He feels the creeping dread in his gut again. "I'm sorry," she says suddenly.

"For what?" he manages once he finds his voice. She looks at him strangely, like the answer is obvious.

"I promised you I'd watch his back," she reminds him with a calm that unsettles him. "I didn't. I literally didn't." She starts to laugh. It's a painful, hysterical thing. He doesn't have the heart to tell her to stop. "He died because I didn't watch his back. If I'd done my fucking job it would have been me... " She looks at him, eyes suddenly clear. "It should have been me."

(It's then that he realizes she won't recover from this. One way or another, she's intent on following Joel. He can see it in her face, in her eyes).

He's conflicted. He knows Joel wouldn't approve. On the other hand, if the situation was reversed, his brother would have ended his life the second he saw Ellie's body hit the ground. Tommy's sure the only reason Ellie didn't is because people got to her before she could.

He won't give her the gun, he decides, eyes trained on the broken creature in front of him. He won't give her the gun, but if she finds one of her own...

He won't stop her. He owes her that much.

(In the end, though, he didn't even need to worry over it).

* * *

It doesn't take long. Tommy is the only one not the least bit surprised when, a few days after Joel's death, Ellie starts coughing up blood. They try, _god _do they try. Tommy nearly loses his voice shouting at Doc and his assistants. The answer remains the same. They caught it too late. She's lost too much blood, and it's drowning her from the inside.

She's very conscious of it, declines morphine when offered. Somehow, that makes it much worse.

(Usually it's not wasted on the dying, but no one wants to see the girl suffer more than she already has).

It's horrible to watch. Even Maria has to take a few moments to herself. Tommy stays, because he has to. He reckons it must be awfully painful, wishes he had the strength to just put her out of her misery, but he can't bring himself to end her life. So he watches her suffer, wincing in sympathy when the blood comes up, but aside from shuddering and hitching her breaths, Ellie doesn't make a sound.

"I'm sorry," he tells her. He thinks she understands the message isn't just for her, and he knows she'll pass it on, if she can. She meets his eyes then, and he sees fear. He takes her hand. He knows he's not who she'd choose to be at her bedside, but... then again, maybe he is. He doesn't think she'd want Joel here, watching her bleed out. "It'll be alright," he tells her softly.

"What if I can't find him?" she asks, shivering as another coughing fit overtakes her.

"You will," Tommy promises, squeezing her hand and swallowing at the lump in his throat. "I know you will. You're both stubborn as fuck. And... some things are meant to be. Some people are meant to find each other. You two were. Are. Nothin' in this world or the next can ever change that." He's never been much of a poet, and he's sure he sounds like something out of a lifetime movie, but it seems to do the trick. She smiles for a moment, and his stomach turns at the glimpse of red on white. She squeezes his hand back, and the frailty of it is so unlike her that tears start coming in earnest.

"Thank you." She shuts her eyes, smile fading as she grimaces slightly. Those are the last words she ever says to him. He figures they're as good as any.

He's a little shocked when her eyes open again. They flit around, head turning as if she's been called. Her mouth stretches into a smile.

"You took your goddamn time," she mutters, eyes settled on something just behind Tommy. His skin prickles. He doesn't have to turn around. He can see by Maria's confused expression that there's nothing there. "Asshole." Ellie mutters fondly. Tommy goes white as a sheet, whipping his head around. Nothing. Then Ellie's hand goes slack in his, drawing his full attention, and he shuts his eyes tightly.

There's a moment that he'll never admit to, a moment where he feels a familiar pressure on his shoulder, like a hand clapping him on the back. He tries to smile, but it comes out broken.

"You're welcome, brother," he murmurs under his breath, before letting himself break down.

* * *

Later, they'll tell him that the screaming started the second she saw Joel's body. They'll tell him that's how she got shot, crouching over his brother's body in the middle of the makeshift battlefield. Probably by the same sniper that got Joel. They'll tell him that she shot the man who did it.

(He'll laugh until he starts crying, because of _course_, of fucking _course_ she did. He'd expect nothing less from his brother's girl).

Later, they'll tell him that she must have been in incredible pain. Bleeding out slowly from the inside. In the chaos, no one noticed. They thought the blood on her was all Joel's. They'll tell him that the shock was a mercy, that it stopped her from suffering. They wouldn't have been able to save her, anyways.

(He'll right-hook the man who voices the word 'mercy' in his presence.

"Nothin' that girl went through was merciful," he'll say. "I'll shoot the next person who tell me otherwise.")

Later, they'll wonder why she didn't say anything. Some will say she just didn't feel it. Tommy knows better. He knows she felt everything. She didn't say a word because she wanted to die. Wanted to be with Joel. He doesn't begrudge her that, and in return he does not berate himself for not noticing the wound. "What's done is done", he tells Maria later. "Let the dead bury the dead. It's over now."

* * *

Tommy rocks back on his heels, bottle back in hand. He admires his handiwork. Two mounds of freshly-dug earth. One marker. _Ellie and Joel, _written so closely together that the words seems to blur into one. He'd initially thought to redo it, having run out of space and crammed the words together, but it seems fitting, somehow, for it to be so.

No one knows he's out here, except maybe Maria. She'll come later, he's sure, to pay her respects. He just needs to say good-bye first.

"Damn," he mutters, shaking his head. "Can't say I ever thought I'd be standin' in front of your grave, brother." He's old now, more exhausted and less idealistic than he's ever been, but there's still a part of him that's nine years old, looking up to his big brother like the sun rose and set on his shoulders.

Some part of him always thought Joel would outlive him, that his bastard of a brother was damn near indestructible.

"I... I ain't exactly sure what I'm supposed to say," Tommy admits. "You were a complete bastard, you did some terrible shit, and there were times where I would've sworn on my life that you weren't human. But..." He swirls the contents of the bottle around, eyes lowered. "But you were a good brother, in your own fucked up way. You were as good a man as circumstances would allow, I reckon. You were a good father to Sarah. You did your best with the shitshow of a life you got. And there ain't no one on Heaven or Earth who can say that you didn't love that girl buried beside you with all your fucking heart. If there was one good thing about you, it was loving her. And I'll miss you. Fuck, brother, I'll miss you."

He takes another swig, can practically hear Joel snorting derisively at the tears streaming down his face. Her swipes a hand across his face, exhaling deeply.

"I didn't know you very well," he confesses to the ground where Ellie lies buried. "I don't know what your life was like before you came here. But I know that you were a crack shot, and you told the worst jokes in the world, and I know that you saved my brother's life in more ways than I'll ever understand. I know you made him laugh, and that you made him human. I'm sorry I couldn't help you. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry if I ever made you think any of this was your fault. Because it wasn't. You always watched his back, Ellie. And I know you always will. So... thank you. Thank you for lovin' a broken man and makin' him somethin' near fixed. I can't say I ever understood the two of you, but I'm glad you found each other. Thank you for my brother, Ellie."

He's crying freely now, shoulders shaking. He looks at the bottle in his hand, still half full despite his efforts and struggles to smile. "How 'bout it, brother? One last drink?" he asks. He's met with silence, and doesn't know why he's surprised. "Cheers," he says quietly, pouring it over Joel's grave. He can almost hear Ellie huffing at the exclusion, and he finds himself chuckling as the final drops shake out onto her grave. He places the bottle beside the marker.

He stands there in silence for a few moments. The wind picks up, and the welcoming lights from the town beckon to him. He'll go home, and tell his wife he loves her.

He looks one last time at the graves, and nods to himself.

He turns on his heel to go, about to start moving when something bumps against his foot. He reaches down and picks up the whiskey bottle. Logically, he knows it was probably the wind. Almost definitely. Still, he can't help the half-sob, half-laugh that escapes him.

"Good-bye," Tommy says, and leaves for home.


End file.
